Dear People -- A rider participant in a Horsemanship Improvement Clinic which I gave in Indiana a couple of years ago has written to me to say that she has terminal cancer and is looking for a permanent and good home for her American Saddlebred gelding.

This horse, whom I dubbed 'Brownie' at the clinic, is an excellent mover and a fine ride. He's only 13 years old. He does have some soundness issues but they have been well managed by appropriate medication and shoeing and the horse went entirely sound under my eye.

When I say 'old fashioned', I meant it; this is a much more substantial and less 'extreme' type of Saddlebred than we usually now see. More's the pity on that, as the type of horse that Brownie represents is a much more useful and athletic animal than the so-called 'modern' horse adapted only for showing. Pedigree wise, Brownie's registered name is Playboy's Champagne Promises. He's heavily Anacacho Shamrock but with only one line to Supreme Sultan (luckily). He also has fairly close-up Ridgefield's Genius and, of course, a couple of old lines to Justin Morgan and to Messenger and other trotters. Go to http://www.allbreedpedigree.com and look him up to get full pedigree details.

Brownie can gait I believe but his owner has not put much training on that. He will make a real good all-around performer for the lucky person who takes him.

The owner strongly prefers that her horse go to someone who reads our Forum and who follows our training and handling procedures.

This is exactly the type of American Saddlebred I would buy for my own use, because he has aptitude not only for the High School but the intelligence and personality for any amount of so-called 'tricks', Spanish Walk, garrocha, etc.

If you're interested I will put you in contact with the owner. See photos below and in the next. -- Dr. Deb

Hello Dr Deb,
Sadly I'm the wrong side of the Atlantic for this horse. He looks delightful.
I am interested in one of your comments about his bloodlines. You say '....only one line to Supreme Sultan (luckily)'. I am wondering why you say this.

I have an Arab x ASB who was bred here in the UK. His sire, Premier Color, was imported from the US, and I notice that his great grandsire on his dam's side is Supreme Sultan.

Because, Dorothy, Supreme Sultan was so overwhelmingly popular as a sire that peoples' faddish breeding and re-breeding to this one stallion nearly caused the extinction of the American Saddlebred breed. It did cause the extinction or near-extinction of four out of the five major bloodlines that had made the ASB a balanced and strong breed. Now it is extremely difficult to find any horse in that breed which is free of Supreme Sultan, so that it could be used as a healthy outcross.

Further, Supreme Sultan was an "extreme" type (for his day). But breeding extremely long, fine neck and flat-bodied, narrow-bodied horses to others of the same blood and who manifest the same conformation, leads to further and greater degrees of extreme; until today it is almost impossible to find any ASB that has the kind of broad-bodied, heavy-boned substance and strength that the old Glen Chief, Rex McDonald, Easter, and other now-extinct or nearly extinct lines regularly produced.

The result of breeding exclusively to one popular male horse, or dog, or any other domestic mammal, is always this: to weaken the breed genetically by inbreeding, which is to say, reducing allelic diversity and thereby reducing or eliminating the possibility of beneficial pleiotropism (interaction between alleles which differ); and also to weaken the breed by creating weedy, crappy horses that may, from the point of view of a very shallow aesthetic, look "cute" or "pretty", but which are worthless in terms of durability, stamina, adaptability, general athletic capability, and goodmindedness and tractability.

In England, Australia, or Canada, you still today have a better chance of getting a better-quality ASB than in the US, because foreign countries which have to import livestock of a breed native to some other place, always lag twenty or thirty years behind the current "fashion" in the home country. So be glad your animal, like the one being given away in this thread, has but ONE line to Supreme Sultan, and the rest hopefully not closely related to either Wing Commander or Anacacho Shamrock. -- Dr. Deb

Thank you Dr Deb,
It is so sad and frustrating when fashion takes over from good function.
The pedigree I have only goes back to Premier Color's great grandparents. There is no mention of Anacacho Shamrock or Wing Commander, though one of his great grandsires is Wing's Fleet Admiral, so I'm guessing there is some connection if we went further back.
Dorothy

Dorothy, your horse and my Oliver are fairly closely related. Your horse has tons and tons of Black Squirrel, Rex McDonald, King's Genius, Bourbon King and Peavine, and so did my Oliver; and yours even has one fairly close-up line to Easter. Very nice breeding even with several recent lines to SS and AS. I expect your animal is substantial and broad-bodied. Can I get you to send me a conformation photo sometime??

Go see your horse's full pedigree, going back to as far as you like, by clicking on this liink:

Man alive! I had no idea this type of horse was still around. The last one I knew was 18 years old when I met him, and that was about 20 years ago. I have looked around for something like this for years, but it is not a good time for me to have a horse again. When I finish pharmacy school, if the time is right, I will most likely have to look for saddlebred crosses. I sincerely hope for peace for the owner and a new partner for this grand fellow.

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